Bad news for all wisconsin sportsman!!

http://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/politics/2015/02/04/wisconsin-dnr-board-members-object-to-scott-walker-proposal/22863235/

Bad news indeed. What problems exactly does that proposal fix? It doesn’t sound like any money savings involved. I thought he was all about less government regulations.

I guess I don’t have to worry about it much though as a state worker all my worries will just be on trying to keep up with the bills. All this leads me to another thought hammering at me for months and that’s getting back to fishing on a dime. Discretionary income seems to be less and less all the time and then I watch IDO and other fishing shows and read the magazines and it’s all about spend, spend, and spend some more or you won’t be successful.

I’ll start a new post. See “Fishing on a Dime”.

King Walker has spoken, do not defy the King!

I don’t see that much value in a 7 member board of “appointees” that are already decided on by the governor, but I don’t think he should have sole decision making authority either. If memory serves, the board has made as many recommendations I disagree with as they have ones I agree with. I think both are flawed, but having a board is probably the least flawed.

And Kathy Stepp did not come from a DNR, or any other sort of natural resources background… she is business person making her way in developing land and building out the sites. Then turned politician, she is not the person to buck anything Walker passes down.

A less messy DNR process may come from it, but politics will play far more heavy, and any balance will suffer.

I’m hoping its just another drafting error by the governor and his staff.

Realistically speaking, the advisory board to the DNR and many other parts of our wonderful governors budget proposal worry me much less than the $300 million he wants to chop from university systems budget.
If that goes thru, I’ll be much more concerned about keeping my job!

I’ll never understand why governor Walker and his staff continue to portray people who work in education as enemy of the state.

John Schultz wrote:

I don’t see that much value in a 7 member board of “appointees” that are already decided on by the governor,

Same here John. I’m not from WI so do know I have far less exposure to the WI DNR and their inner workings than those on the other side of the river. That said, I’ve had nothing but poor experiences with decisions made by committee where no one person is responsible yet everyone has equal voice. It sounds like it will be easier to get things done with the new arrangement and much easier to know who’s responsible if and when things are done improperly.

When the sole discretion is under the control of a Non-sportsman its trouble! Regardless of the political side your on this is bad news. Walker is a butcher of outdoor funding and conservation minded programs. This is horrible for any sportsman. He will basically cave to any business pressure now placed on DNR functions. Uw will be the state of Walker DNR, no longer state of Wisconsin DNR! The spiral into the toilet shall begin!

I thought gov walker and wanna be prez was a fan and supporter of the hunter and fisherman???????? :?::?:

I’d like to hear WHY he is doing this and what the anticipated outcome will be of the change. Not fear mongering. Just take a breath and be objective. Seems we all assume that less DNR executive overhead will be bad for sportsmen. What the savings in salary have a positive impact on Wisconsin’s fiscal health allowing for better and leaner government? What if?

I know in Corporate America, there is a constant vigil to trim waste and bloat in programs and personnel that are not contributing to the needs of the organization. The end result is usually positive.

They can have my fishing pole when they can pry it from my cold dead hands. Face it boys, whether your for him or against him, he and his majority houses have unfettered policy making ability. Time will tell where we end up, long after they are gone, we will be left behind to deal with the mess.

I know in Corporate America, there is a constant vigil to trim waste and bloat in programs and personnel that are not contributing to the needs of the organization. The end result is usually positive.
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These decisions being made by CEOs while jetting away on corporate jets to exotic locales with other CEOs and writing it off as a business expense. Give me a break.

castle-rock-clown wrote:

These decisions being made by CEOs while jetting away on corporate jets to exotic locales with other CEOs and writing it off as a business expense. Give me a break.

Perhaps in some places, but most CEO’s actually have measured standards based on income vs. outgo vs. orders coming in, etc… and HR runs the numbers and tells each business unit that they need to hire more perm, more temp, or reposition existing people into other areas. As a last resort, the business may have to let some people go.

Think before you speak, fat cat CEO’s rarely have anything to do with hiring and firing other than to help set the measurements/metrics that guide the business. It is all based on measurable data about the health and productivity of the company. Most of all the day to day decisions are made by HR and lower level managers.

I get that, and that makes my point even more. CEOs and their ilk are more figure heads than actual assets to a company. I only have a GED, but I bet if you placed me as a CEO of a company and gave new all the staff as you described I could probably do as good. Now this is being said with established companies. My hat is off to the true CEO pioneers like Sam Johnson, Sam Walton, ect. The guys who actually built their businesses out of almost nothing.

JD- this is a Government entity, not some private company.

Being a student at UW I hear a lot of rumblings about Walker and his “tyranny” and most times I blow it off because I am ideologically on his side. Having said that this proposal seems to accomplish nothing as many others have said. Why on earth does it even make remote sense to strip the power of the one organization that has shown that it is knowledgeable and is capable of regulating and protecting the lands and waters of Wisconsin? I’m normally the first one to bash the DNR but despite their issues at least they are “educated” and “qualified” to work in the Natural Resources field. Puppet appointees I just cannot see as a good answer. Especially because as most appointees are politicians and friends of the “appoint-er” whom ever that may be and not necessarily appointed based on merit and qualification. It will be interesting to see this run it’s course

Joel Ballweg wrote:

JD- this is a Government entity, not some private company.

And your point is that government should not seek to run as efficiently and effectively as private companies? I don’t know the reason Walker is doing what he is doing but it seems to me that forming negative opinions on the matter before the business case is understood is a little premature. I like what Icefanatic11 says,

icefanatic11 wrote:

It will be interesting to see this run it’s course

I just may take a side on the matter once all is understood. In the meantime, it is time for us to understand the “why” before we break out the pitchforks and torches.

castle-rock-clown wrote:

CEOs and their ilk are more figure heads than actual assets to a company.

Clown, you know I like and respect you but that statement is beyond GED silly. I’m not saying I agree with the sometimes obscene amounts of monies CEOs make but come on man, they are not just figure heads. Most work about 80 hours a week and many have personal lives that are in shambles. I’d be happy to let you know just some of the things CEOs do to earn their keep but I suspect it may not even change your mind. It seems so cliche to have so many people spew stereotypes of what Corporate Executives do and don’t do because of a few bad apples that make the press or because of class envy. I’m not on any side here, but understand both sides to some degree. I have a mixed work history of blue collar, retail, small business owner, consultant and corporate manager. In particular, I now work in HR as a consultant building software systems that help HR executives make these tough hiring decisions with pure data and metrics from the business bookkeeping perspective.

Can’t get access to articles, could someone post it?

JD, don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is already made up!

JD, we have got to get out on a boat this summer for a weekend, we will have a blast.

castle-rock-clown wrote:

JD, don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is already made up!

lol! I truly admire the intellectual honesty of that statement.

The why is because our governor obviously does not want idea or public opinion to play into state functionality! If such was the case a working system would not be disrupted by a my way or the hi-way! Such seems to be the case! Wonder what Brother told Scott to implement this measure?

bronzbak wrote:

The why is because our governor obviously does not want idea or public opinion to play into state functionality!

Any research, articles, quotes or evidence to back that up or should we all just trust your good looks and personality?

JD – show me an example where any government entity operates even remotely like a private company.

Joel Ballweg wrote:

JD – show me an example where any government entity operates even remotely like a private company.

I can’t Joel, I really can’t. And that my friend, is exactly the problem. The inefficiencies of government-run anything are staggering. And yeah, I could site hundreds of recent examples. I can tell you that it is common knowledge that if the government ran a tight ship like private industries do, tax payers would have a lot more for a lot less. Your paycheck would be bigger, your property taxes would be lower, and you could afford more rippin raps. (gotta bring fishing back into this somehow, lol)

And we would all be speaking Chinese.

And speaking of the Chinese, don’t they run their entire country as a massive private corporation and treat their “outside investors” as subsidiaries that are out of country business entities, who are subject to absolute control exerted by the Chinese government.

If mr Walker was concerned about public opinion on this issue why would he be disabling the sole purpose and function of the entity?

bronzbak wrote:

If mr Walker was concerned about public opinion on this issue why would he be disabling the sole purpose and function of the entity?

Your observation may indeed be correct as well as the assumptions you make. “I don’t know yet” is the answer most of us should have now. A quote directly from the article:

Conservation Congress spokesman Lee Fahrney said the organization hadn’t formed a position on the proposal yet because it’s so new.

THAT is an honest and prudent reaction, and comes from the “opposition”. There are still 4 months of this proposal to be reviewed, explained, and modified. So I’m just suggesting calm and a willingness to be open to understanding the proposal. We’ll find out soon enough if it has an adverse effect on our sporting lives. If it does, THEN I may just join you with fork and torch in hand.

I just may take a side on the matter once all is understood. In the meantime, it is time for us to understand the “why” before we break out the pitchforks and torches.
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The why is not the question I have in mind it’s the who, as in who’s pulling his strings? Walker clearly has very little education on most of the policies he’s put in place or proposing. He never finished college but the frontrunner for the next GOP nomination, really? I wonder if his failure in college has anything to do with the retaliation on education and the UW. Please tell us who’s really making the calls and pushing his buttons?

He’d be more like another Bush as president than Jeb, he clearly wasn’t calling the shots either.

JD, we’re all wondering why too — there was no discussion of this during the campaign. No rationale provided in the budget or in statements to the press. There seems to be no valid reason to eliminate the Natural Resource Board other than to concentrate authority into the hands of political hacks.

The Green Bay Press Gazette (which endorsed Walker) has a nice editorial opposing this power grab: http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/politics/2015/02/04/wisconsin-dnr-board-members-object-to-scott-walker-proposal/22863235/

For those of you who are sympathetic to Walker’s ideology, do you want such concentrated power in the hands of a Governor with a different ideology?